On February 6 all was at length ready and the parties came together, M. Gérard for France and the envoys for the States, to execute these most important documents. Franklin wore the spotted velvet suit of privy council fame. They signed a treaty of amity and commerce, a treaty of alliance, and a secret article belonging with the latter providing that Spain might become a party to it--on the Spanish _mañana_. There was an express stipulation on the part of France that the whole should be kept secret until after ratification by Congress; for there was a singular apprehension that in the interval some accommodation might be brought about between the insurgent States and the mother country, which would leave France in a very embarrassing position if she should not be free to deny the existence of such treaties. It was undoubtedly a dread of some such occurrence which had induced the promptitude and the ever-increasing liberality in terms which France had shown from the moment when the news of Saratoga arrived. Nor perhaps was her anxiety so utterly absurd as it now seems. There was some foundation for Gibbon's epigrammatic statement that "the two greatest nations in Europe were fairly running a race for the favor of America." For the disaster to the army on the Hudson had had an effect in England even greater than it had had in France, and Burgoyne's capitulation to "Mr. Gates" had very nearly brought on a capitulation of Lord North's cabinet to the insurgent Congress. On February 17 that minister rose, and in a speech of two hours introduced two conciliatory bills. The one declared that Parliament had no intention of exercising the right of taxing the colonies in America. The other authorized sending to the States commissioners empowered to "treat with Congress, with provincial assemblies, or with Washington; to order a truce; to suspend all laws; to grant pardons and rewards; to restore the form of constitution as it stood before the troubles."[51] The prime minister substantially acknowledged that England's course toward her colonies had been one prolonged blunder, and now she was willing to concede every demand save actual independence. The war might be continued, as it was; but such a confession could never be retracted. "A dull melancholy silence for some time succeeded to this speech.... Astonishment, dejection, and fear overclouded the assembly."